First Valentine's Kiss
by Demelza
Summary: In response to Mooncat's Valentine's Day Challenge. Four friends, Elisa, Matt, Owen and Beth share Valentine's Day together... painting Elisa's new apartment. (set around 2003-04)


**Title:** First Valentine's Kiss  
**Author:** Demelza  
**Disclaimer:** Gargoyles aren't mine, I do not, and never will own them.  They belong to Disney, I am just borrowing them for this story.  All new characters are my own creation.  ;)  
**Rating:**  PG  
**Warnings:**  Sexual references, violence.  
**Summary:**  In response to Mooncat's Valentine's Day Challenge posted at the GFW.  Four friends, Elisa, Matt, Owen and Beth share Valentine's Day together... painting Elisa's new apartment. (set around 2003-04)  
**Author's Note:**  All of my thanks go out to Skye, who Proofread this story for me, thank ya sis! Also, please note, ' --// ' & ' \\-- ' indicates the past/memories.

Elisa stepped into the elevator, letting out a breath as she stood against the wall opposite Owen Burnett.  "Is everything all right, Detective?"  He asked as the doors slid closed.

Elisa met his gaze, steel gray eyes met her with a triumphant lock, "As good as ever."  She lied, her heart ached in yearning for her lover, Goliath.  But his own heart had since moved on and taken grace with a gargoyle from the Japan Clan that had come to live with the Manhattan Clan a few months back.  

Their relationship had ended abruptly when he found her in the arms of another man.  'The look in your eyes as he told you he loved you, the nights of passion he desired to spend with you...'  Those were the last words her lavender lover spoke before gliding off into the thunderous storm that had hit the skies that night.

Elisa had thought her heart was mended, since Goliath had moved on.  But in truth, because Goliath had moved on just thrust the forgotten spear deeper into her heart.  Yes, she had shared an intimate kiss with another man, but it had not gone any further than that.  She was working undercover at the time, the kiss had meant nothing to her, and it was the only time it had ever happened in the entire time she was with Goliath.  Jack Aniello didn't know she was a police officer, he didn't know that when he kissed her, she thought of another man, another being so much greater than any man on the face of the planet.

She didn't know why she had even accepted the chance to work the case, perhaps it was so that she could finally bring down Ron Breen.  Maybe it was the thrill in working alongside the kindly hearted Jack Aniello she had heard so much about, but never met before.  Even though she had met him under false pretenses, a fabrication of truths that would save his life.  At least, that was the written theory for the operation and how it would play out according to the fifteen officers working behind the scenes who had etched the 'plan' out on yellow paper with their fancy business pens.

Through all the planning and all the minds behind it something still had gone horribly wrong.  Ron Breen had found out from unknown sources that Elisa was working undercover and set out to destroy her, and Aniello, his once best friend.

Breen was a full time drug dealer, coming in on smaller operations such as cars, guns and people when the need called.  Aniello had the only connection to prove that Breen was involved and the mastermind behind all the trafficking.  They had been friends since kindergarten, breaking bones together, falling in and out of love, they went through everything imaginable together.  Through thick and thin.  

Aniello had gone to college, became a qualified accountant, and because of their close ties, had offered, free of charge, his services to his best friend.  The duo worked together for ten years side by side, Aniello knew what Breen was up to, but he never reported him.  Friends didn't do that, Breen had threatened.

The fatal shot to the head with a .22 caliber revolver closed the curtains of this life to Aniello.  Elisa hovered over his body, she crouched down on her knees for what seemed like forever.  The S.W.A.T team led by her partner, Matt Bluestone, broke in and Breen and his fifteen men on site were arrested and taken away.  Breen, charged with first-degree murder, trafficking, drug dealing, and a whole other manila folder filled with offenses committed.  

--//  Elisa knelt by Jack's body, his head on her lap, she apologized frantically, asking him to not leave.  Telling him that this whole sorry mess was over.  Then the reality that he would never awake from the sleep that enclosed him forever until eternity, hit her.  She let him go, standing up at her partner's insistence.  "He's free now."  She swallowed, watching as the Coroner and his assistant's came and took the most dignified man she had ever known was wheeled away, wrapped in a black body bag.  Death had struck, her heart ached, she wondered so many times of what she could do to change how it had gone down, to bring him back to his life and say good-bye the right way, the way where hearts would part with broken beats and she'd tell him that she'd never forget all the things she had learnt in the seven weeks they had known each other.  \\--

Elisa was alone, no Goliath, no anyone.  Broadway and Angela were soaring over the city the same as they did countless evenings after their Mating Ceremony.  David and Fox Xanatos, with their son Alex in tow, had gone to Hawaii for three weeks vacation.  Lexington and Brooklyn were on their first dates with the mate's they had been chasing for the last six months, twin gargoyles from the Japan Clan, showing them the most romantic spots over the city.  And Goliath, after their parting words for the evening, was off on a romantic picnic with his mate, Ishyata.

"You're alone this Valentine's Day, Detective?"  Owen broke her away from her thoughts.  

"Yeah."  She replied, letting out a sigh.  She looked at the buttons on the panel to her right, and then up to the sign above the elevator.  Seventeen more levels to go, and they'd be on the ground floor.  Seventeen more floors, and then she could go home and work on continuing painting and decorating her new Studio Apartment a few blocks from the Eerie.  Matt and Beth, also spending their Valentine's Day alone, had offered to help her decorate, not wanting to relive the painstaking memories of broken relationships gone.

Silence fell upon them, the elevator came to a stop after a short while and the doors slid open.  The two inside stepped out, Elisa first, and then Owen shortly behind her.  Elisa had only gotten a few feet from the main desk in the lobby when Owen called to her.  

Elisa slowly turned back to him and begun walking over to where he stood by the main desk in the lobby.  "Earlier, I overheard you telling your sister on the phone that you would be decorating and painting your new apartment."  She nodded a 'yes,' "I have the evening off, would it be a problem if I offered to assist in the D.I.Y painting?"

Mild shock settled in her chest, "Yeah, that's fine.  If you want to, yeah, I won't say no.  I need all the help I can get.  As soon as it's finished I can move in."

Owen nodded, "When do you hope to move in?"  He asked, clearing his throat ever slightly.

"Two, three weeks at the most."

"I think that can happen."  He replied, this time a smile formed on his mouth, one of those very rare smiles she was lucky enough to be presented with.

* ~ * ~ *

They arrived together at her apartment not quite a half hour later so that Owen could go by his apartment and grab his overalls.  Overalls, of which Elisa hadn't imagined he'd actually owned a pair of.  They used the elevator until they reached the top floor, level 64.  The building was one of the tallest in the area, and Elisa was very lucky to have had enough money in her savings account to pay for it out right.  Even if she did buy it from Aniello's family, who sold it after finding out he owned several empty apartment complexes in need of work through out the city.

The elevator opened and they stepped out, being greeted by three doors, one ahead, one to the left, and another to the right.  At the direct left hand side of the elevator was a fire escape staircase.

"Here we are."  She said, going to the door to their left and unlocking it.  The pair walked inside and closed the door behind them.  The lights were on, and music could be heard coming from the far end of the apartment.  "Beth and Matt must be here already."  She said, placing down her keys on the bench and then walking through to the second bedroom, where Beth and Matt were busy scraping the walls, preparing to wallpaper the room shortly.

"Elisa, Owen."  Beth said, she and Owen had dated three times two years back.  It didn't work, Owen just wasn't as talkative as Beth would have liked him to be.  She kindly explained it wouldn't work and that was it.  "We got here over a half hour ago, what took you so long sis?"

"Owen was getting his overalls."

Matt stood up from crouching down at the wash board of the far wall of the room and walked over, wiping his hands with the cloth that had been tucked in the front pocket of his blue overalls.  

"Owen and I will work in my room, I've almost finished scraping, and am about ready to hang up the wallpaper in there."  She turned to Owen, "If that's all right with you?"

"It's fine Detective."

She was about to insist he call her Elisa, and not Detective, when the telephone rang.  "That'll be for me."  Matt said, and went running out of the room to answer it.

"Right, okay Owen, you're with me."  Elisa said, taking him through into the next room.

The next four and a half hours the two rooms were spent being wallpapered by the pairs.  Elisa's master bedroom was a warm light pastel pink with brush strokes of cream through it.  While the spare bedroom was just a cream with some thin strokes of a very light gray, which could almost be taken for white.  There was only one wall in each of the two rooms left to be done, but the gurgling stomachs of all those there beckoned for dinner.  So while Matt called a local restaurant offering Chinese, Italian and Pizza delivery services, Elisa, Owen and Beth washed up their faces and hands.  "I know the guys that do the delivery's, they'll be here within the next half hour."  Matt told them as they all took seats at the dining table to rest while they waited.

The meals were delivered in record time some fifteen minutes later, the delivery boy was tipped a modest one-hundred by Owen, who thanked him for his prompt delivery.  "You guys order again, won't ya."  The happy young fellow shouted moments before leaving.

Once placed on the four seat round table, the food was ravaged by four hungry souls.  Matt ate with his mouth full at least ninety-percent of the time, it rarely unoccupied as he made up for lost time, "I'm famished!"  He received a firm, 'Matt, you pig' look from Elisa.  Beth was not any better, and so the two of them shared a common trait.  Owen ate tidily, although when it came to eating the Chinese foods, he and the chopsticks did not get along well at all.

"Here, let me show you."  Elisa said, showing him with her own chopsticks the correct way to hold the chopsticks.  He tried it several times, but with each attempt ending in failure.  Frustration, an emotion she was not certain he ever expressed in another's presence came out in deep sighs.  "It's okay, you can just use your fork," she offered, before placing down her own chopsticks and eating with the utensils that had come with the meals.  Owen nodded and proceeded to eat in the same fashion as she demonstrated.  The frustration in his face fading as he commenced, and finally began to enjoy the meal before him.

When almost all the food packages there had been eating, including the three large pizzas, laughter echoed in the room when a loud, long burp came from Owen.  "Excuse me."  He laughed along with them.

When the laughter finally died, the mood was replied by a somber silence.  But the silence was broken when Matt began speaking, "I think this would have to be the best Valentine's I've ever had when alone."  He said.  Nods came from everyone in the room.  "Thank you, guys."

"Yeah, thank you."  Beth said at his side, smiling over to him.

"I'm thankful to you all as well."  Elisa said, turning to Owen.

"It's the first Valentine's Day I've ever had off.  I usually work late."

"That stinks."  Matt muttered, shaking his head.

Silence fell upon the four friends.  No one really liked to talk about anything to do with Xanatos.  It made Elisa furious, even still after all these years.  Matt had no true opinion of the man, but preferred Xanatos kept his distance from him.  While Beth had mixed opinions and feelings, he had made his sister's life a living hell for years, he had tried to destroy her and the Gargoyles countless times, and then there was the whole sorry mess where he had transformed her brother Derek into Talon.  For that, she was angry even though he was happy with the way he was, helping those underground.

"Ainslie Potter."  Matt said in an 'I remember' tone.  "I was twelve, and she was eleven.  I'd walked her to school every day since we were five.  We were playing in the park on the way home from school when she kissed me as we shared a drink at the water fountain."  He swallowed, remembering.  "I had never thought of her like that, I always thought of her as a kid sister or something.  Next day, her parents moved her to Florida."

More silence.

Matt slowly looked in Beth's direction, as if indicating for her to tell of her first kiss.  She slowly nodded, looking around them all at the table, "I was thirteen, my first day of High School.  He was fifteen, showing me around so I knew where everything was.  Even the janitor's room.  We shared a kiss, that was all.  We hung out at school every day, two months went by and we spent a lot of time in that room.  We skipped a whole class the one morning I can remember the most."

Elisa looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "Is that when you were expelled?"

Beth nodded, smiling, "I shared my first kiss and lost my virginity to the same guy I dated until I left high school."

"Drayson Andrade."  Elisa said, Beth nodded again.  "I wouldn't tell Dad that story, he didn't think you lost your virginity until you were eighteen, when you left high school."

"I know, that's what I told him."  Beth admitted, "What about you, Elisa?"  She smiled confidently, knowing the whole story, but wanted her big sister to spill the beans in front of her partner and Owen.

"I think Owen should go first."

Owen looked back at her with intrigue in his eyes, "I think I'd like to hear your story first."

Elisa laughed, trying to get out of it, looking at Matt.  But Matt had 

already told them his story.  She let out a sigh when she realized that she 

wasn't going to win this one.  "Guys didn't particularly interest me wh..." 

Matt interrupted her, "So, you were into chicks huh?"

Her reflexes were quick and she swung her foot under the table and got him squarely in the shin, which hurt a lot since she was wearing boots with metal caps in the front of them.  "No."  Elisa replied sternly, shaking her head whilst glaring at him at the same time.  "My first boyfriend was Jackson, the first guy I kissed, and the first guy I ever slept with."  She said, her voice showing the pain in her heart.  Tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, "He was the first guy I ever loved."  She sniffed, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand.  "It's your turn now Owen," she said, but rather than staying there, she excused herself and got up, heading to the master bedroom.

"I didn't mean to..."  Matt said to Beth.

She put her hand on his knee, "Jackson died in a car accident, Christmas Day ... they'd only just gotten engaged.  She was nineteen when he died."

"Gawd, if I had of known."

"Don't, it's not your fault."  Beth assured him, but Matt still felt bad.  She took her hand from Matt's knee, turning to face Owen, "So you never told us your story."

Owen cleared his throat, "I'm going to see if your sister is all right."  He excused himself and leaving the room.

Beth and Matt sat at the table looking at each other, "I hadn't meant..."

"Matt, really, it's not your fault.  It's painful for her, Jackson was her first true love.  It's no one's fault, only the driver of the other car that ploughed into the side of the car we were in."  She swallowed, tears forming in her eyes now too, "We'd just pulled out of the driveway, next thing I remember is all the screaming, blacking out and waking up in hospital, being told Jackson had died."

"I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, me too."  Beth replied, shaking her head at her memories, wishing that day hadn't occurred.  "Matt, how come..." she went to ask, but stopped, turning away from him.

"Go on."  He urged, but she told him it didn't matter.  "How come I don't have anyone to spend Valentine's Day with?"  He asked, slowly she turned back to him and nodded, "I haven't met the right girl yet, I guess."

"Or, maybe you have, but ... you just don't know it yet."

"Maybe the same could be said for you, of the right guy."

"Maybe."  Beth replied, smiling ever gently back at Matt, he smiled back at her.

In the master bedroom, Elisa had picked up a section of already cut wallpaper, getting ready to dip it into the glue they had prepared earlier, when Owen came in behind her, clearing his throat, "Detective Maza..." His voice reigning heavily with a caring tone.

At hearing his voice, the roll of paper dropped from Elisa's hands, and she begun to cry, the tears flowing and low sobs came from her as she wrapped her arms around herself.  "Why does love always end in heartache, Owen?"  She turned to him, swallowing back more tears, "Why?  Tell me why everyone I have ever loved have left me."

"Detective..."

More tears came, "Is that all I am?  Just a detective?  I mean, I live my nights working nonstop, it feels like that's all I am anymore, just an employee of the N.Y.P.D, one of their workers.  That's it."  She said angrily, sorrow and regret showing in her red, tear-filled eyes.

Owen stepped over to her, "You are more than just a Detective."

A moment's silence, then she crooked her head back a little, "Then why don't you ever call me, Elisa?"

"You never asked me to."

Elisa just looked up at him, and could see he was trying to hide a smile, "No, I didn't."  She swallowed, "We're friends, aren't we, Owen?"

"I like to think we are, or could be ... yes."

"Good.  Right now I need a friend... I don't think I can ever love again."

Owen nodded, "I used to think that," he told her, brushing back loose strands of hair aside, "My first love, as Owen, has been my work.  To fulfill my humanity, I only let myself work, I didn't want anything to interfere with my service to Mr. and Mrs. Xanatos."

"What happened?"  She asked back.

He rose up his left hand, "I changed."  He said, and soon the stone arm he had changed with a green light to an arm of flesh and blood.  His eyes met Elisa's confused gaze, "This is the first Valentine's Day I haven't spent alone.  I work almost twenty-four seven every day of the year.  This year I decided to do something different when I heard you talking with Beth on the phone. I called Mr. Xanatos and asked for my first break away from work in the entire time I have been in his service.  He granted my request."

"Why the sudden change?"

"This mortal form I've taken, it has only been for a life of work and servitude to Mr. and Mrs. Xanatos.  I set limitations to everything I do and feel, so that my work as Owen Burnett would never falter."  He took in a breath, "As Puck, I am a trickster.  As Owen, I am a servant to another man.  As Owen, I am also alone."

"Owen, I'm so sorry."

"Now I can no longer feel fulfilled living my solitary life as Owen Burnet. I want more. I want to live as mortals live and experience the same things that they do. Puck, the Trickster, who will always be apart of me also seems to have stepped back away from Owen. It is Owens time to live and I want more." 

He paused as music started to play.  It came from out in the living area from Beth's radio she had brought with her earlier on.  Lifehouse's song 'Everything' was playing.

_  Find me here, speak to me  
__  I want to feel you, I need to hear you  
__  You are the light that is leading me..._

"So, what'll you do?"  Elisa asked, not moving, just wiping away the tears from her cheeks with the palms of her hands.  "Still work for Xanatos?"

"It pays well."  Owen replied, laughing.  " Live, experience, maybe even a little heartache."

_  To the place where I find peace again  
__  You are the strength that keeps me walking  
__  You are the hope that keeps me trusting  
__  You are the life to my soul_

She sniffed, "You can't tell me you've never loved before, had your heart broken."

"Not as Owen, not as... I am."  He replied.

Elisa looked back at him, "So, you've never had a Valentine, then."  She said, stating what had come to be known as the truth between them.  

_  You are my purpose, you are everything  
__  And how can I stand here with you  
__  And not be moved by you  
__  Would you tell me, how could it be  
__  Any better than this_

"No."  He replied, saddened.

"Owen..." she spoke, he looked back at her and she stepped up to him.  Carefully, and surely, Elisa stepped up onto the tips of her toes and drew his lips to hers in sweet, first kiss.  As their lips touched, his hands met her hips, Elisa thought he would push her away, but she was surprised at his gentle touch as he brought her body closer to his.  She wrapped her arms around his neck in gentle compliance, "Happy Valentine's Day, Owen."  She said softly, her voice near whisper, their eyes meeting.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Elisa."  Owen said back.

A low chuckle came from Elisa, "Much better than, Detective."  She smiled, placing one of her hands behind his head and caressing gently, an action she hadn't realized she was doing until their lips met again and she stopped to fold her arms around his neck.

the end.... ;)


End file.
